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An Anabaptist publication says the television show "Amish Mafia" is a "bigoted attack on Amish identity" that shamelessly exploits recent tragedies including the Nickel Mines massacre to gain ratings. The publication, the Mennonite World Review, calls "Amish Mafia" the latest and most disparaging of a string of similar productions that degrade Amish identity. "The time for these shows to stop was years ago. But Amish Mafia enters new territory. And the difference lies in what's real and what's fake. While the show portrays the obviously fake and clownish criminal antics of its Amish and Mennonite actors, it despicably makes use of the real-life Nickel Mines school massacre and recent violent attacks on Amish families by an Ohio cult to supplement the entertainment," the Mennonite World Review states.

In Clarion County’s Licking Township there are vibrant green hills, windy narrow roads and traffic signs posted just as much for the trucks and tractors as for the horses and buggies. It's a small, rural farming community north of Pittsburgh. When you pull up to Emmanuel Schmidt’s home, you see acres of land, his woodworking shop and carriages. The 49-year-old Amish farmer knows Obamacare is coming, but he doesn’t quite know what that means. "I’ve wondered, I’ve really wondered what’s going to happen with the health care, I don’t know," he said.

Pa. — Police say a man stole a cash box from a roadside farm stand on Saturday afternoon, but was caught by police a short time later. East Lampeter Township police said they responded to a report of a heavy set man who spent a long time ordering a lot of produce and talking to the Amish woman tending the stand along the 2800 block of Irishtown Road around 1 p.m. When she walked away for a moment, he grabbed the cash box and fled in a blue Scion TC coupe, according to police.

ASHTABULA– A father and son have plead not guilty to 13 felonious assault charges after police said they allegedly shot at a van filled with Amish teens, seriously injuring two. Kenneth and Michael Jameson of Huntley Road in Ashtabula were arraigned Monday and remain free on a $250,000 bond. The shooting happened in July, when the teens went to Jameson’s property around 11 in the evening to get items they had in a storage area.

On September 14, 2013 at approximately 3:10 PM the Sauk County Communications Center was notified of a child that had drowned at a residence of an Amish family on STH 154 in the Township of Washington just outside of the Village of Hillpoint. Sauk County Sheriff’s Deputies, Hillpoint First Responders, and Reedsburg Ambulance Service were immediately sent to the scene. The preliminary investigation revealed that a 2 year old boy, who did reside at this farm, was playing outside when his mother briefly lost sight of him and began to look for him. She did find him a short time later floating face down in a water tank. Resuscitation efforts were not successful and the child was pronounced dead at the scene by the Sauk County Coroner Office.

An Amish West Farmington man was sentenced 20 years to life in prison Monday for sexually assaulting seven girls between 11 and 13 years old. Daniel Miller, 47, of state Route 534, pleaded guilty as charged Monday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to five counts of first-degree felony rape that carried life-in-prison maximum sentences, one count of second-degree felony sexual battery and 10 counts of third-degree felony gross sexual imposition.

A three-year-old Amish boy died Wednesday afternoon after he was run over by the trailer of a horse-drawn wagon in Seneca County. Lester Schumucker and his brothers Daniel, 10, and Victor, 6, were riding on a wagon driven by their father Chris Schumucker Jr., 36, of Junius about 4 p.m., said Lt. Michael Schell of the Seneca County Sheriff’s Office.

Many outsiders assume the Amish reject all new technology. But that's not true. One Amish man in Lancaster County, Pa., checks his voicemail about four times a day. His shop is equipped with a propane-powered forklift, hydraulic-powered saws, cordless drills, and a refrigerated tank where milk from dairy cows is stored. The difference between Amish people and most other Americans is the deliberation that takes place before deciding whether to embrace a new technology. Many Americans assume newer technology is always better, and perhaps even inherently good.

PARADISE — Police say four people were injured, one critically, and a horse was killed after a minivan collided with the animal in central Pennsylvania. The (Lancaster) Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era says the minivan was heading west on Route 30 in Paradise Township in Lancaster County. State police said the driver apparently didn't see a horse running east in the same lane and struck the animal head-on, killing it, at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday.

(ORLEANS) - An Amish man was killed in a sawmill accident Monday afternoon. According to Orange County Sheriff's Department Public Information Officer Bill Fullington, 23-year-old Jacob Stutzman slipped and fell, landing on a moving saw blade.

WEBSTER COUNTY, Mo.— A Missouri Amish man says he castrated himself, but deputies aren't sure why or if he's telling the truth. Deputies in Webster County found Jacob Schwartz lying in his bed and covered in blood. We want to warn you, some of the details of this story are graphic. On the morning on July 23, Deputy Adam Hughes found himself at a farmhouse in Seymour. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw next.

Expect no great rush of people converting to Anabaptist groups such as the Amish, Mennonite and Hutterite communities that in work, dress and communal life are separate in varying degrees from the larger culture. These communities trace their origins to a movement in 16th-century Europe that in general emphasized adult baptism and separation of church and state. They set demanding membership standards. Their growth is largely due to relatively high birth rates.

OH — An appeals court has sided with a hospital that wants to force a 10-year-old Amish girl to resume chemotherapy after her parents decided to stop the treatments. The court ruled that a county judge must reconsider his decision that blocked Akron Children's Hospital's attempt to give an attorney who's also a registered nurse limited guardianship over Sarah Hershberger and the power to make medical decisions for her.

OWEN SOUND, Ont. — An Owen Sound man charged with harassing members of the local Amish community became fascinated with them in 2008 and came to believe he had received “a commission from God to find an Amish wife,” court heard. That's what Crown attorney Michael Martin said on the first day of Keith Roland Miller, 71. Miller has pleaded not guilty to charges of criminal harassment against both the Amish community as a whole and Lori Watt, a bus driver who took Amish people to and from Owen Sound to shop for groceries.

EATON, N.Y. — In a quiet corner of Madison County, you'll find Bradley Brook Reservoir, the perfect, peaceful spot to drop a line and relax for awhile. The location is so perfect, it is apparently worth fighting over. The reservoir and Hatch Lake are run as one community. The claim is that the Amish are overfishing the lakes. Carey said the community reaction has gone too far. She claimed, "They've been screamed at on the lake, they've been sworn at, their picture has been taken." Carey said she even saw a party barge try to run over an Amish family in a canoe. She's contacted state police and the sheriff.

Newburg, PA — Laura and John, who has his own construction company, live with their boys - Aiden, 7; Thomas, 4; and Micah, 3 - in a spacious house in tiny Newburg, 150 miles west of Philadelphia. John, 31, designed and built the house, which is lit with the help of solar panels during the day and gas lights at night. He also built a barn that houses his office and the family horse and buggy. The land - 10 acres, bought from his father - was part of the original Lapp family farm, and John's parents and two of his three brothers still live close by. It's an arrangement few "English" wives likely would embrace, but Laura seems genuinely delighted.

A central Pennsylvania man convicted of robbing and assaulting three elderly Mennonite sisters has been sentenced to 12 to 40 years in prison. The Lancaster County sentencing judge Thursday said 22-year-old Dereck Taylor Holt is a danger to the community. Holt will get psychiatric treatment in prison. Authorities say Holt pretended to be an insurance salesman to get inside the Clay Township home in December, then bound the 85- to 91-year-old victims, hit them with a stun gun, sprayed their home with household chemicals and left them for dead.

MEDINA, Ohio — An Ohio hospital wants a court to give it limited guardianship over a 10-year-old Amish girl with leukemia whose parents decided to stop her chemotherapy. Akron Children's Hospital plans to appeal a juvenile judge's decision that blocked a hospital attorney who's also a registered nurse from making medical decisions for the girl.

It was nice to know that people in the Amish community also read “Across the Fence.” I find it interesting that as I write about the way life was lived when I grew up, I’m also writing about the way the Amish are living life today. This is a case where the past and the present meet and the past is still alive and relevant. It’s not just a memory. I think that’s why I love going for rides through Amish country. I can still relate to the life they’re living.

Ohio — Approximately 200 Amish residents in Trumbull County gathered at the Mesopotamia fire station Monday evening for an open forum to discuss drug issues relating to heroin and methamphetamine. Then meeting was called at the request of bishops within the Amish community, who reached out to the police for help. Our station was asked not to show video from inside the meeting, but two police officers and a member of the Trumbull Ashtabula Group drup task force spoke, and went over meth and heroin awareness tips.

Wisconsin: Seven Amish families in the towns of Bridge Creek and Fairchild could be added to the number of Amish evictions enforced by Eau Claire County. Now Judge William Gabler has in essence ordered the eviction of one Amish family's chickens from their chicken coop by September 27th. Why? Because the Amish have a religious objection to smoke detectors. What do smoke detectors have to do with chickens?

LANCASTER, Pa. — Yes, they partake of cocktails and a gala dinner at the tony Union Club on Park Avenue in New York, and lunch at the United Nations and the White House during their visit. But on a recent fresh summer day, the chefs of the heads of state from all over the globe gather for chicken croquettes, succotash, whoopie pies and other local dishes at an Amish barn in East Lampeter Township. It is a day for a celebration of simple food and simple moments, a sort of sweet corn diplomacy offered from Lancaster County to the outside world.

WINDSOR TOWNSHIP, ASHTABULA — Two men arrested after Amish teens shot in Ashtabula County

SULLIVAN — If something is worth inventing, it’s worth inventing again. Armed with that kind of reassurance, Sullivan entrepreneur Larry Yoder has gone ahead and reinvented the horseless carriage “because I had a ball doing it.” And it really is a carriage: He’s taken a former Amish buggy and built solar panels into the roof to feed batteries that power an electric motor capable of whipping it along at 14 mph, flat out. The buggy has been lengthened and widened and now, measuring 10 feet long and 6½ feet wide, will hold six passengers in comfort in its green crushed velvet interior.

Traditional Amish beliefs are butting heads with modern society in Eau Claire County, where county officials are meeting resistance by some of the county’s Amish residents to installing smoke detectors in their homes. One Amish family in the eastern part of the county, near Augusta, has been evicted from its home, in part because of the issue, and others face possible eviction because of their refusal to allow smoke detectors in their homes and their objections to other portions of the state building code, said Randy Hill, an Eau Claire tax preparer who has several Amish clients.

GLADSTONE – A member of a Manitoba Old Order Mennonite community tells Global News that Child and Family Services took 42 children from their homes near Gladstone last week. “We are very distressed,” said a bearded man riding a horse and buggy who Global News can’t identify to protect the identity of children involved. “CFS has apprehended all our children that are minors. They walked into the houses, took the babies out of their cribs while they were sleeping.”

In January 2012, our lives changed in a way that we never anticipated. My husband John and I went to a John Regier seminar for marriage relationships. That day, we heard a lot of inspiring information. As I lay in bed that night, I asked Jesus to forgive me for my sins and to live in my heart. I remember thinking to myself just before I completely fell asleep, “How am I going to tell John?”

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FAIRBANK, Iowa — A member of an Amish Community, William J. Yutzy, 30, of 33906 Hilton Road, Edgewood, formerly of 1370 Dillon Ave., Fairbank, pleaded guilty and was sentenced on one count of Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree, a Class C Felony, in Buchanan County District Court on Tuesday, June 5.

BALTIC, Ohio — In parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania where horse-drawn buggies clip-clop at the pace of a bygone era, Amish communities are debating a new temptation — the large cash royalties that can come with the boom in oil and gas drilling. In some ways, Amish attitudes toward hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, are as different from the outside world as their clothes and traditions. Instead of worries about air and water pollution, they're focusing on people's souls.

Dear Readers, Last week, I received this message from a young woman who read The Outcast . She had grown up in the Amish church but left under the protection of her family when she was nineteen years old. This is what she had to say: